In 1959, MacColl & Seeger did a concert at Univ of Pennsylvania which I taped. They did a set of Epigramatic Songs. That is, complete songs or ballads in one or two verses. I've collected a few more since and I'll try to copy the whole file.   There are also "Travesties." These are jokes on known songs eg, Amazing Grace / She had three tits.... The two ideas have considerable cross-over but I won't include that file.

Bessie Bell and Mary Grey         (Child #201)

Bessie Bell and Mary Grey,
They were twa bonnie lasses.
They biggit their bower on yon burnside
And thackit ower wi' rushes.

They thackit ower wi' rushes green,
They thackit ower wi' heather;
But the plague cam' fae the borrow toon
An' burried them baith thegaither

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The Colorado Trail

Eyes like the morning star,
Cheeks like the rose,
Laura was a pretty girl,
Everybody knows.

Weep all ye little rains,
Wail winds wail,
All along, along, along,
The Colorado Trail.

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Dog Tick         (from Peggy Seeger)

Dog tick, dog tick, dog tick, 'bacco worm,
Why can't a dog tick dance like a 'bacco worm?

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I Was Standing On the Corner         (From Ed McCurdy)

I was standing on the corner
Just as lonely as could be,
When up there came an ugly man
And tied his horse to me.

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The Lady in Red         (From Dr. IS Posen)

See the lady in red,
Makes her living on her bed.
For fifteen cents she'll do it once;
For twenty-five cents she'll do it twice.

Here I stand
With a nickel in my hand...
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime.

The first Posen-song I ever learned was "The Lady in Red." In Randolph/Legman vol I ("Unprintable") on page 246 is that same song, collected from a 20-year-old college girl in 1946.

Legman notes that the 15 cent price is part of the joke as ludicrously low since typical depression-era low-cost cost was about $2, rising to $5 with the War. He suggests that the song may include the hidden admonition "that the reward of sin may not always necessarily be death, but it ain't much."

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Bob-Tailed Mare       As sung by Phil & Sid Taylor of near Edinburgh

Of all the horses in the merry green wood
The bob-tailed mare bears the bells away.
There is "Hey," there is "Ree," there is "Whoa" there is "Gee,"
But the bob-tailed mare bears the bells away.
"Hey, Ree, Whoa, Gee,"
But the bob-tailed mare bears the bells away.

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There's many more verses (see cotton-i.txt), but I think probably 99% of the times its actually sung, "Cottoneye Joe" is simply:

Where did you come from? where did you go?
Where did you come from, Cottoneye Joe?

I come for to see you, come for to sing,
Come for to show you my diamond ring.

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The 1930'S                     (by Bob Davenport)

The 1930's was always on my mind,
So a steady job was the thing to find.
Now as Wall Street totters and a slump grows near,
Thank the Lord,
I've got a barber's job...in a maternity ward.

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Ye Can't Put Yer Muck in Oor Dustbin         (Glasgow street song)

Ye can't put yer muck in oor dustbin
   Oor dustbin, oor dustbin.
Ye can't put yer muck in oor dustbin
   Oor dustbin, fu'

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WAD YE DO THAT?         (Robert Burns, in _Merry Muses of Caledonia_, page 14   
         Tune: John Anderson, my jo)
                           
Gudewife when your gudeman's frae hame,       [away from]
   Micht I but be sae bauld,
As come to your bed-chamber,
   When winter nichts are cauld;
As come to your bedchamber,
   When nichts are cauld and wat;
And lie in your gudeman's stead;
   Wad ye do that?

Young man an ye should be so kind,
   When our gudeman's frae hame,
As come to my bed-chamber,
   Where I am laid my lane;                   [alone]
And lie in our gudeman's stead,
   I will tell ye what,
He f---s me five times ilka nicht,            [fucks, every]
   Wad ye do that?

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Supper Is Na Ready         (Robert Burns, in _Merry Muses of Caledonia_, page 45, Tune: Clout the Cauldron - as they all are- learned from MacColl. That is, I did. I don't know where Burns got it.)

Roseberry to his lady says,
        "My hinnie and my succour.
"O shall we do the thing you ken,
        "Or shall we take our supper."
                        Fal lal &c.    [MacColl didn't sing "Fal lal &c."]

Wi' modest face, sae fu' o' grace,
        Replied the bonny lady;
"My noble lord do as ye please,
        "But supper is na ready."
                        Fal lal &c.

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My Brither Bill         (Glasgow street song, per MacColl)

My brither Bill's a fireman bold,
   He pits oot fires.
Only twenty-three years old,
   He pits oot fires.
He went to a fire the other night
When somebody shouted, "Dynamite!"
Wherever he is, he'll be all right.
   He pits oot fires.

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My Ma's a Millionaire        (Glasgow street song, per MacColl)

My ma's a millionaire,
Big feet and curley hair,
Walking down Buchannan Street
With her big banana feet
My ma's a millionaire.

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"Old Aunt Kate"        (From Peggy Seeger)

Old Aunt Kate she baked a cake
She baked it 'hind the gar-den gate.

She sift the meal and gimme the dust,
She baked the bread and gimme the crust,

She eat the meal and gimme the skin,"
And that's the way she took me in.

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Old Mother Riley        (learned from Phil & Sid Taylor & also
                         in _101_ Scottish Songs)

Old Mother Riley at the pawnshop door,
Baby in her arms and a bundle on the floor.
She asked for ten bob, she only got four,
And she nearly pull't the hinges off the pawnshop door.

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Oor Cat's Deid        (learned from Phil & Sid Taylor & also
                         in _101_ Scottish Songs)
Lingle lingle lang tang oor cat's deid
Whit did she dee wi'?
Wi' a sair heid!
A' ye that kent her
When she was alive
Come to her funeral
Atween four and five.

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Siembamba          (a S. African mother's song, per Marais & Miranda)

Siembamba, momie's baby,
Siembamba, momie's baby,
Twist his neck and hit him on his head,
Throw him in the ditch and he'll be dead.

Siembamba, momie's baby,
Siembamba, momie's baby,
Just for love she throws him in the ditch,
Momie's sweet little, sweet little.........baby.

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Drunken Sailor verse               (Aparently from the singing of Pete Seeger)

I had me a wife and I got no good of her;
Here is how I easy got rid of her;
Took an ax and chopped the head off her.
Early in the morning.

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From: "Paul J. Stamler"

Robin Williamson's "The Son of Noah's Brother"

'Many were the lifetimes of the son of Noah's brother
See his coat, the ragged riches of the soul'


Art Thieme calls the world's shortest ballad (14 words):

'Papa loved mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen'

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Stamler: Barry Louis Polisar's "My Name is Hiram Lipschlitz (Oh, to be a Smith or Jones)", which at 10 words holds the record so far (note that the title is longer than the song):

'My name is Hiram Lipschlitz and my problem's pretty clear.'

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From: Sam Hinton

       My sweetheart's a mule in the mines;
         I drive her without any lines.
                On the bumper I sit
                And I chaw and I spit
         All over my sweetheart's behind.


"Foggy Foggy Dew" fits the ancient words

       My bishop's eyes I've never seen
                Though in them the light may shine;
       For when he prays, he closes his,
                And when he preaches, mine.


That same tune seems to go with
                I rode out on my motor-bike,
                        And Ruth, she rode with me.
                I took a bump at sixty-five --
                        And rode on Ruthlessly.


"Plaisirs d'Amour" furnishes a tune for another very old one:
            The horse bit the parson;
                 Why did this come to pass?
            Because the horse heard him say
                 "All flesh is grass."


Lots of them can be sung to the tune of "O God, Our Help In Ages Past:"

                When I was young, the bathing girls
                        All dressed like Mother Hubbard.
                But nowadays, the Lord be praised,
                        They dress more like her cupboard."


To the tune of "The Irish Washerwoman:"

                MacTavish is dead and his brother don't know it;
                His brother is dead and MacTavish don't know it.
                They're both of them dead, and in the same bed,
                And neither one knows that the other is dead.


"Black Socks" has its own tune, and is a fine round:

                Black socks -- they never get dirty,
                        The longer you wear them the stronger they get.
                Some times I think I should wash them,
                        But something keeps telling me "Don't wash them yet!
                                Not yet! Not yet! Not yet!


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From: Michael Cooney

"Fleas"

Adam had 'em.

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From: Wade Tarzia

This song is short
at last report
it won the nanometer sport
whose prize is small:
when on the wall
the ants do bruise their toes and fall.


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From: Simon Furey

The old Tom Paxton song:
"I sing of Spiro Agnew and the things that he has done..."
(followed by a deathly hush)

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From: Ed Cray (learned ca. 1960 by Pipe Major James MacColl)

Oh, ye canna push your grannie off a bus.
Oh, ye canna push your grannie off a bus.
Ye canna push your grannie,
For she's your mammy's mammy
Oh, ye canna push your grannie off a bus.

(spoken) But...
Ye can push your other grannie off a bus.
Ye can push your other grannie off a bus.
Ye can push your other grannie,
For she's your daddy's mammy
Ye can push your other grannie off a bus.

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From: Joseph C Fineman (re the Peggy Seeger concert song)

My mother had it this way:

A peanut sat on a railroad track.
His heart was all a-flutter.
Railroad train came round the bend.
Toot! Toot! Peanut butter.

& from http://www.antenna.nl/wwwcisv/songs.html Netherlands children's songs

A peanut sat on the railroad track,
His heart was all a flutter.
Round the bend came number ten:
Toot! Toot! Peanut butter

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From: Eric Berge

Icky-gooey was a worm
A mighty worm was he;
He sat upon a railroad track,
A train he did not see.
Icky-gooey.             <--- Last line spoken.

I don't remember the tune I used to use; when I try to sing it now, I
invariably wind up with something that sounds like "Foggy, Foggy Dew",
which I'm almost sure isn't right.

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From: Frank Hamilton

Don't know if this qualifies as a ballad. It emanates as folklore from the nether regions of the Bronx in New York City.

Don't cry lady, I'll buy your god-damn violets
Don't cry lady, your pencils too.
Don't cry lady, take off those beggars goggles
Hello mama, I knew it was you.

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From: Paul Tyler

It's been lonely in the saddle
Since my horse died

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Cooney

"It's so lonely in the saddle since my horse died" was one of the many New
Lost City Ramblers' one-liner tuning jokes (in the 60's) that someone has
turned into a complete song. Others (also turned into full songs) were,
"How can I miss you when you won't go away?" and "I'm so miserable without
you, it's almost like having you here."

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From: "Wally Macnow"

The full song as I learned it from Dave Olive went

It's so lonesome in the saddle since my horse died
Ridin' on the range ain't no more fun
It's so lonesome in the saddle since my horse died
Reckon I'll get another 'un.

To the tune of "Turkey in the Corn"

Oh, the horse ran around with his foot on the ground
The horse ran around with his foot on the ground
The horse ran around with his foot on the ground
The horse ran around with his foot on the ground

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From: Mary Stafford

(1) from Eric Von Schmidt

"Edward Teller told me yesterday
That his eyebrows are not real."

(2) from Annie Lynch, a personal friend
(sung to me ~ 1951)

"She was only the garbageman's daughter;
As she stood beside the swill,
The smell of the garbage was mighty sweet,
But she was sweeter still."

(3) from Carl Sandburg

"Cigarettes will spoil your life,
Ruin your health and kill your baby-
Poor little innocent child!
They're so mild, they're so mild, they're so mild."

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From: Margaret MacArthur

Learned from my husband's mother, Olive MacArthur

Oh the grasshopper sat on the sweet potato vine
The sweet potato vine, the sweet potato vine
the turkey gobler came up behind
And snapped him off the sweet potato vine

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From: Sam Hinton

in Carl Sandburg's AMERICAN SONGBAG in 1927:

       Great Gawd,I'm feelin' bad,
         I ain't got the man that I thought I had!

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From: Stefni Agin

How about rounds such as

Lady come down and see,
the cat sits in the plum tree.

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From: dick greenhaus

Never throw a lighted lamp at mother
You never know when you can find another
I'm sure you wouldn't want to see
Ma lit up like a Christmas tree
So never throw a lighted lamp at mother.

and

Don't never trun rocks on yer mudder
It isn't the right thing to do;
Don't never trun rocks on yer mudder
She never threw none on you.

Don't never trun rocks on yer mudder
Don't never trun stones on her head;
Don't never trun rocks on yer mudder
Trun brick on yer fadder instead.

Family values.

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From: Paul Charosh

Other song fragments, probably from the vaudeville stage and unpublished:

[tune: paraphrase of "O Du Lieber Augustin"; all "w"s in text pronounced "v".]

In the wintertime, in the valley green,
When the wind blows on the window pane
And the women working in vaudeville
Ride velocipides in the vestibule.


And, of course:

Don't throw stones at your mother,
You'll be sorry if you do.
Don't throw stones at your mother,
She never threw stones at you.
She rocked you in your cradle,
She tucked you into your bed. So --
Don't throw stones at your mother,
Throw rocks at your old man instead.

(both of the above from the memory of Mannis Charosh, 1906-1985)

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From: Frank Hamilton

When I grow too old to fight,
I'll become a Trotskyite
When I grow too old to see
A Forward reader I will be.

(Forward being the Yiddish newpaper)


Let's not forget the coal miners song about the "sweetheart". Believe it may be in Archie Green's "Only a Miner".

My sweetheart's a mule in the mine
I drive her without any line
On her bumpers I sit, tobacco I spit
All over my sweetheart's behind.

(Based on the tune My Sweetheart's a Man in the Moon)

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From: Jeffrey Kallen

To the tune of 'Love me Tender' or whatever you want to call it...

When a rock falls on an egg,
Too bad for the egg.
But when an egg falls on a rock,
Too bad for the egg.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
From: Michael Cooney

When a rock falls on an egg,

...is the chorus (there are a couple verses) of a song made up by someone
in Northern California. His pen name was Biggs Tinker. And his tune was original -- not 'Love
me Tender'.

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From: Mary Stafford

which sounds suspiciously to me like a few lines from
Carl Sandburg's monumental "The People, Yes"

Whether the rock hits the jug
Or the jug hits the rock
It's bad for the jug

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From: jkallen@tcd.ie (Jeffrey Kallen) Trinity College Dublin

for Turkey in the Straw:

Oh the cat couldn't kitten and the puppy couldn't pup,
And the old man couldn't get his rhubarb up

('You see the man was a farmer and he had trouble harvesting his crops...')

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From: Edie Gale Hays

Ot the short songs Allen Sherman used to do on his records

Every time you take vaccine take it orally
as you know the other way is more painfully!

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From: Linn Schulz

"Battle of Bull Run"
(collected by Frank Warner, Electra #3)

This day will be remembered by America's loyal sons
If it hadn't been for Irishmen, what would our Union done?
"Twas hand to hand we fought 'em, all in the broilin' sun.
Stripped to the pants we did advance at the Battle of Bull Run.

Scots Children's Song (to tune "Cornwallis Country Dance")

Long and thin goes too far in
And doesn't please the ladies.
Short and thick will do the trick
And bring out proper babies.

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From: Joseph C Fineman

Another case of brevity achieved by truncation. The rest of it is

Our Mary did it once.
Once was once too many.
Wasn't she a silly dunce?
Did it for a penny.

That fills out the tune, which is that of "Pop Goes the Weasel".)

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Linn Schulz

the Robert Burns contributions:

"No Hair On't" (Burns)
Yesterday I wed a lady fair and wad ye believe me
On her c*nt there grows no hair, and that's the thing that grieves me.
It vexed me sair, it plagued me siar, it put me in a passion
To think that I had wed a wife whose c*nt was oot o' fashion

"Johnnie Scott" (Burns)
How can we mak a coat for Johnnie Scot among us maidens a"?
How can we mak a coat tae mak the laddie braw?
There's your c*nt hair an my c*nt hair
And we'se twine it wond'rous small
And if the weave be scarce, we'se crop oor arse
Tae mak him a kilt and a'

Back to Scots children's song:

Oh I thocht when I wore the kilt
I could walk frae tay tae Forth
Trochlin' up and doon the street
Whistlin' the "Cock o' the North."
But a' the youngsters shouted,
"Awa' mon wha're ye kiddin'?
Instead o bein' the cock o' the North
Ye're only the cock o' the midden."

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From: Robert B. Waltz

Scots children seem to have been highly precocious.

"He's torn a', ripped a', torn a' ma goon (x3)
Did ever ye see sic an ill-tricket loon?"

With such wondrous verses as

"Oh she wadna dae it, she wadna dae it, she wadna dae it ava,
In bed or oot of bed or up agin the wa',
But she did it on the pantry floor, the best ye ever saw;
She hotchit up her petticoat and cried, 'Ca' awa!'"

(Learned from the Friends of Fiddler's Green)
[Also recorded by Arthur Argo - ajs]

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In the wintertime, in the valley green,
When the wind blows on the window pane
And the women working in vaudeville
Ride velocipides in the vestibule.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph C Fineman

Ven de falling-apple season's chust begun
And de vormy apples fall from off de trees
And de caterpillar mit deir hair in curls
Pick dem apples up to make sveet ci-der.

Ah, vimmens,
Ah, men!

My mother sang it when I was little (1940s). Carl Sandburg sings the
first stanza (but not the above one), plus "Ah, vimmens,...", on _The
Great Carl Sandburg_, Lyrichord Stereo LLST 766.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dick Swain

The shortest traditional song I've heard is Scots

Says Tweed to Till
"Wha gars ye run so still"
Says Till to Tweed
"Though you run wi' speed and I run slow,
For aye man that ye droon.
I droon twa."

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From: Bill Cameron

"We are sinking deep in sin
Won't you come and push us in?"


also Bob Dylan's perhaps trad-influenced:

"All the tired horses in the sun,
How'm I s'posed to get any riding done?
Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm"


Finally, my 11-yr old daughter Emily likes to sing, roughly to the tune of "John Brown's Body":

"I know a song that get's on everybody's nerves
On everybody's nerves, on everybody's nerves.
I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves
On ev-ry-bo-dy's nerves."

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From: ed cray (Erotic Muse)

161. SHORT SONG
Melody--Turkey in the Straw

Oh, the wiggle of her ass would make a dead man come,
And the nipple on her tit is as big as my thumb,
She's a mean motherfucker, she's a great cocksucker,
She's my girl, she fucks!

From Paul Woodford, "Hash Hymns II" (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994)



This is an aggregation of quatrains sung to the familiar melody, collected by Hubert Canfield in 1926. According to Canfield's unidentified informant, the last verse is sometimes used as a chorus.

I dreamt last night and the night before
That the devil was a knocking on the shit house door.
I went down stairs to let him in
And he cracked my ass with his rolling pin.

I ran upstairs to crawl into bed
And fell in the pisspot over my head.
I couldn't swim and I couldn't float,
And a great big turd slid down my throat.

I went donwtown to buy a penny drum
Knocked on the door and nobody come.
I picked up a brick and broke the glass.
Out come the Devil a-sliding on his ass.

The Devil shit a monkey and the monkey shit a flea.
The flea shit a sailor and they all went to sea.
The sea begun to roar, the piss begun to pour,
The sailor got a hard-on and couldn't get ashore.

Oh, here's to Sally, who's a goddam whore.
She wiped her ass on the knob of the door.
The moon shone bright on the end of her tit,
And she brushed her teeth with bluejay shit.

Oh, she rolled over once and she rolled over twice,
And she rolled over three times, Jesus Chris~t!
The hair on her coozie was strawberry color,
And the fleas up her ass were fucking one another.

Here's to the Kaiser, the son of a bitch,
May he died of the pox and the seven-year itch.
We'll batter his balls with a seven-pound hammer
Till his asshole whistles "The Star Spangled Banner."

The old man sat on a barbed wire fence
Screwing up his nuts with a monkey wrench,
The grass grew up and tickled his balls
And his gun went off in his overalls.

Fill up the bowl, boys, fill up the bowl,
And drink to the dean, God damn his soul.
We'll all be there when he calls the roll
For we're all going to Heaven up the dean's asshole.

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From: Naemanson

Sung to the tune of The Mermaid:

The true Story of the only voyage of His Swedish Majesty's Famous and Most Powerful Warship, The "Vasa."

It was Friday morn and we set sail,
And we sank to the bottom of the sea.

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